ASTORIA, Ore. — Jeff Nelson was well known for his love of space and Star Trek in particular, and following his death in September 2021, a group of his friends in Astoria have been working on a plan to honor his memory by sending his ashes on a trip to orbit.
"We just thought this would be a neat thing for him because he just wanted to be cremated," said Dan Boettcher, one of Nelson's friends.
His friends describe Nelson as "nice guy," the type who was easy to talk to. Boettcher said that's how he became friends with Nelson 30 years ago.
"Every Friday or Saturday night, we'd go down and have a beer and shoot a couple of games of pool and it took off from there, and we became friends," Boettcher said.
As a former radio personality at a local Astoria station, Nelson used his gift for talking to make friends. Boettcher said he loved to impersonate his favorite celebrities, and that's where his love for Star Trek was really on display.
"Give him half a chance and he'd do his William Shatner impression for you or Johnny Carson, or any number of different things he did. Scotty, Shatner, Spock, Johnny Carson, some of the characters from the Simpsons," Boettcher said, listing off some of the many impressions Nelson did.
The Shatner impression in particular was award-winning. In 2011, Nelson submitted a video for the "International Talk Like William Shatner" contest.
"Later he goes, I won! I said, well why not, you've been doing him ever since he debuted," Boettcher recalled after watching the video in the living room of his Astoria home.
Nelson's love for Star Trek spanned decades. He would attend Star Trek conventions and even met his favorites, like James Doohan, who played Scotty, and William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk.
So it's only fitting that his love for space is sending him there.
Nelson's friends researched a company called Celestis, which specializes in memorial flights to space. His ashes will be sent to outer space in a small metal capsule aboard a rocket.
"This is the perfect thing for Jeff, being the Star Trek fan and all the outer space thing," Boettcher said.
Nelson had previously been scheduled for a Celestis mission called Aurora, but it was delayed in November 2022 and when it launched on May 1, the rocket malfunctioned shortly after takeoff and never reached altitude.
A representative for Celestis said Nelson's ashes are now scheduled to head to outer space on their Perserverance mission, which is slated to launch in the second quarter of 2024. His ashes will touch outer space and then return to earth shortly after.